Portuguese Jews

“ THE JEWS IN SPAIN, ENGLAND, AND ITALY. Few words will suffice to relate what befell the Spanish and Portuguese Jews during this century. Beyond the fact, already recorded, of their oft-recurring migration from both countries to the friendly shelter offered by Holland, there is little to tell. Those who lingered behind, unable or unwilling to quit the land of their birth, continued to practise the old deception, and, when discovered or suspected, to undergo the same merciless severities as their fathers had endured. There is no need to repeat the hideous and monotonous tale of their sufferings. ”

“ In the marriage contract between the king of Portugal and the fanatical Isabella (August, 1497) , it was expressly set down that all persons of the Hebrew race coming under condemnation of the Inquisition, who sought refuge in Portugal, must leave within a month's time.
Thus many thousand Portuguese Jews became pseudo-Christians, but with the firm resolve to seize the first opportunity to get away, so that in a free country they might openly practice a religion only the dearer to them for all they had suffered for it. ”

“ The citizens gradually got accustomed to Jews, and learnt to respect them. Some of them were appointed business agents or residents even by high Catholic potentates. The king of Portugal first appointed Duarte Nuñes da Costa, and then Jacob Curiel, as his agents, and his Catholic majesty, Philip IV, elevated Immanuel Rosales, a Jewish author of Portuguese descent, to the dignity of count palatine. The Portuguese Jews,693 in general more favorably situated than their German brethren, felt so happy at Hamburg, that they called it their "little Jerusalem." ”

“ Particularly important was their settlement in Hamburg and Berlin at this time. In Hamburg the municipal council gave to some Portuguese Marranos, who came there to escape from the Inquisition, the right of residence in spite of clerical protest. The first settlers were soon followed by Jews from Germany in the course of the seventeenth century, and finally (1710) , they formed a legally-organized congregation. Similarly [81] Portuguese Jews had found a haven of refuge in various cities of Southern France, although there in a Catholic country they had to conceal their Judaism. ”

“ The Portuguese Jews, it is well known, came from Spain, and their ultimate expulsion from Portugal was attended by the same results as the Spanish expatriation.
The other great division of Jews in Europe are the Sarmatian Jews, and they are very numerous. They amount to nearly three millions. These unquestionably entered Europe with the other Sarmatian nations, descending the Borysthenes and ascending the Danube, and are according to all probability the progeny of the expatriations of the times of Tiglath-Pileser and Nebuchadnezzar. ”

“ Since the middle of the sixteenth century there had been Jewish communities in France, consisting of refugees from Spain and Portugal. But they were only tolerated as pseudo-Christians. Dissimulation was absolutely necessary for self-preservation, and these hypocrites in spite of themselves were obliged to have their marriages solemnised at church, and otherwise to conform to rites which they detested. To these immigrants were gradually added new-comers from Germany and Poland, whom the Portuguese Jews despised and persecuted in a most revolting manner. ”

“ They were largely employed in the iron-works among the mountains of Morocco, as well as in building and agriculture.
One feature in their history deserves especial mention. In 1578, when the ill-fated expedition of Sebastian of Portugal took place, large numbers of Portuguese nobles and gentlemen were made prisoners, and sold as slaves in the market-places of the chief towns of Morocco. Many of these were bought by Portuguese Jews, who must have been sorely tempted to requite the injuries themselves and their fathers had received on these captives, who were wholly at their mercy. ”

“ The more the Portuguese Jews, by their capital and business connections, gained weight with commercial689 men in the senate, the more they broke through the boundaries drawn by narrow-minded legislation. When the bank at Hamburg, to which this city owed its commercial prosperity, was founded (1619–1623) , no less than twelve Jewish capitalists supported it with their funds and efforts, as the Amsterdam Portuguese had done at the formation of the Dutch companies trading beyond the sea. The Portuguese Jewish settlers alone founded the important trade of Hamburg with Spain and Portugal. ”

“ Turning to France, we find that the condition of the Jews during the eighteenth century was very peculiar. It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that, although nominally excluded from France, they had long been suffered to dwell there under protections granted to them by Henry II. and others. There were, indeed, three different sections of Jews resident in France at this time—the Portuguese Jews, to whom charters were granted by the French Parliament A.D. 1550. These were chiefly to be found in Bayonne, Bordeaux, and its vicinity. ”

“ There's a great Number of Jews at the Hague, who make a fine Figure, especially the Portuguese Jews. These Gentlemen have the Equipages of Ambassadors, with magnificent Houses and Gardens; and they often make Treats with the utmost Delicacy and Splendor. They are admitted into all Companies, and only differ from the Christians of this Country by being possess'd of much more Wealth, and living at a far greater Expence. ”

“ In Amsterdam the Portuguese community combined strict traditional piety with secular learning and great commercial activity. To the Portuguese Jews, Amsterdam owes its importance as the center of the diamond trade. Uriel Acosta, who held high office in Spain and emigrated to Holland in order to openly profess Judaism, became imbued with deistic ideas, was tried as a heretic and did penance. ”

“ The Spanish and Portuguese Jews kept themselves proudly and distinctly aloof from the German Jews, refusing even to intermarry with them. The Sephardim and Ashkenazim45 Jews of Holland were, from the very first, entirely separate communities, worshipping in different synagogues, learning in different schools, supporting each their own charities, and using each their own prayer-books, with not even the pronunciation of the ancient language in common. ”

“ Jews of this class are generally considered as more polished than the others, better educated, and more deeply versed both in the language of Scripture and the traditions of their forefathers. In London there is a stately edifice which is termed the synagogue of the Portuguese Jews, where the rites of the Hebrew religion are performed with all possible splendour and magnificence. Knowing all this, one would naturally expect, on arriving in Portugal, to find one’s self in the head-quarters of that Judaism p. ”

“ Humanity.
Thus the humanity of the Portuguese is real, they have no love of violence or bloodshed, but it is a state of mind rather than a course of action, and can be curiously combined with cruel persecutions in practice. The expulsion of the Jews came to Portugal from Spain, and it is difficult to believe that the Portuguese people ever viewed the Inquisition fires in the Rocio with anything but horror. But Vasco da Gama, Affonso d’Albuquerque, Dom João de Castro and other Portuguese in the East perpetrated cruelties as terrible as any practised by the Inquisition. ”

“ That legalistic instinct of the Hebrew, which had evolved the most gigantic and minute code of conduct in the world, had beguiled these latter-day Jews into super-adding to it a local legislation that grew into two hundred pages of Portuguese—an intertangled network of Ascamot or regulations, providing for every contingency of Synagogue politics, from the quarrels of members for the best seats down to the dimensions of their graves in the Carreira, from the distribution of "good deeds" among the rich to the distribution of Passover Cakes among the poor. ”

“ We were surprised, however, by the general ignorance of the properties of herbs and simples—a primitive [151] science in which the native of India is, usually speaking, deeply read.
The principal Oriental tongues studied by the early Portuguese in their mania for converting the heathens were the Malabar, Maharatta, Ethiopic, and Japanese, the dialects of Congo, and the Canary Isles, the Hebrew, and the Arabic. The Portuguese Jews, in the fifteenth century, were celebrated for their proficiency in Biblical, Talmudic, and Rabbinical lore ”

“ This, through successful commerce, swelled into wealth; and when, on his death, his son, with his wife and child, removed to England, and settled in the metropolis, they were considered, alike in birth, education and riches, one of the very highest families of the proud and aristocratic Portuguese.
But the situation of the Jews in England, some eighty or ninety years ago, was very different to their situation now. Riches, nay, even moral and mental dignity, were not then the passport to society and friendliness. ”

“ But, apart from this distinction, which, it may be said, is almost without a difference, the Jews divide themselves into two communities, the one designated as the Sephardim, the other the Ashkenasim. The former are the descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, and claim to be the representatives of the tribe of Judah. They are proud of the eminent men their community has produced ”

“ The greater number of the tax-farmers (Rendeiros) in Portugal were Jews. Princes of the church even appointed Jewish receivers of church taxes, at which the cortes of Lisbon raised complaint. The independence of the Jewish population under the chief rabbi and the seven provincial rabbis was protected in Alfonso's reign, and included in the code. This code conceded to Jews the right to print their public documents in Hebrew, instead of in Portuguese as hitherto commanded. ”

“ The English Jews, we are told, are not Englishmen. They are a separate people, living locally in this island, but living morally and politically in communion with their brethren who are scattered over all the world. An English Jew looks on a Dutch or Portuguese Jew as his countryman, and on an English Christian as a stranger. ”

“ And the other old men or who were not able, they gave them also for ten cruzados to whoever wanted them for ransom, or to make use of them. Among these that were taken in the prizes came many Jews, among whom was an old Jew who had done honour and given hospitality in his house to some Portuguese who had been lost in the kingdom of Fartaque, [272] they went about the country like desperate men, asking the way to Ormuz, and God brought them to the house of this Jew. The Jew took them in and gave them food and drink and stuffs to cover themselves with, and some money for the road. ”

“ Marrano fugitives had escaped from the Inquisition, settled in the North German free Hanse town, and passed as Portuguese "traders." Hearing that their brethren in Amsterdam, with whom they were in communication, openly professed Judaism, and were tolerated, they also lifted their mask, and wished to be recognized as Jews, but continued to have their children baptized. The strict Lutheran citizens raised a loud outcry, and demanded of the senate that the wealthy Jews who had been driven from Portugal and other places should be got rid of, and not be tolerated. ”

“ His father and his queen, Catherine de Medici, had Jewish physicians, who were high in favour with their employers. We are told that the Parliament of Paris condemned in severe terms the inhuman conduct of the sovereigns of Spain and Portugal; and that many of the Portuguese emigrants were suffered to establish themselves at Bordeaux and Bayonne, where they have since resided without molestation. The same, no doubt, was the case among the [Pg 277] German States; where, if the Jews were persecuted in one city, it was comparatively easy to fly for shelter to another. ”

“ As there appears in reality to be no distinction made by the rational part of the Jewish persuasion, between the Portuguese and the Dutch Synagogues, it is earnestly to be hoped that the opulent and respectable of the former Community will lend a helping hand in devising some means of rescuing this part of the Nation of the Jews who reside in England, from the reproach, which it is to be feared, has been too justly cast upon them. ”

“ It is too soon yet to foretell whether or not this vast and growing body of Jews from eastern Europe is to melt and disappear in the American population just as numbers of Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French Jews in our early days became blent with the rest of the people. In any case the immigrant Jews are being assimilated outwardly. ”

“ The Marranos in Portugal were differently placed from those in Spain. King Manoel, who had by force dragged the Jews to the baptismal font, in order not to drive them to despair had pledged his word that for twenty (or twenty-nine) years, their faith should not suffer molestation at the hands of the Inquisition. Relying on this promise the Portuguese Marranos followed Jewish observances with less secrecy than those of Spain. ”

“ On this point they contrasted with the German Jews, who despised pure and beautiful speech, the very thing which constitutes a true man, and considered a corrupt jargon and isolation from the Christian world as proofs of religious zeal. The Sephardic Jews attached importance to forms of all kinds, to taste in dress, to elegance in their synagogues, as well as to the medium for the exchange of thought. The Spanish and Portuguese rabbis preached in their native tongues, and laid great stress on pure pronunciation and euphony. ”